Driving, speed traps, trapster, cell phones, law enforcement, services, traffic

Trapster: Avoid Speed Traps The French Fry-Free Way

Sharing is caring and nowhere is that more important than when it comes to speed traps. We've seen all sorts of backward hacks on how to tell your fellow lover of speed the dangers that await them after the next bend. Flashing headlights, weird waving signals with our hands. Hell, we've even had people fling fries at us through an open window to get our attention. Let's remove the fast food from the equation, shall we? Enter Trapster, a new service giving users the ability to send and receive speed trap information on the fly, by way of their mobile phone. We like the service quite a bit, as it uses cell phone triangulation, GPS capabilities and Wi-Fi to pinpoint the drivers' locations and warn for approaching speed traps.

Despite how much bad karma it may produce by, you know, encouraging us to speed, we're told police officials apparently haven't complained about the service. Yet, anyway. [Trapster via AP]

2:15 PM on Thu Apr 3 2008
By Travis Hudson
1,729 views
10 comments

Comments

TattooedMess(iah) at 02:28 PM on 04/03/08
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I'm worried this may backfire. Couldn't the police just give out false tips to get people to slow down? Seems like most of the time when I'm on Florida's turnpike they're just trying to get us to slow down anyway, unless we're going ridiculously fast.
Corvette_Thunder at 02:37 PM on 04/03/08
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In some states (maybe all?) the police are supposed to release where and when they are doing speed traps, so often a simple call is all it takes. The flip side is that you kinda sound like a tool doing it. This service takes the embarassment factor out of finding out I guess.
graverobber- Two BEER... at 02:40 PM on 04/03/08
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Now we can find out where this guy lives:

+ Watch video
BRDHNTR: Extraordinaire at 02:46 PM on 04/03/08
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@Corvette_Thunder: Are you serious? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a speed "trap"? If it is true, I would definitely call, so that if a cop did pull me over using a speed trap I can say "you can't ticket me because you didn't announce where you placed your speed trap." I am sure that would get me out of the ticket.
Unevolved 8.04 at 02:49 PM on 04/03/08
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Yeah, I see a little dot on Highway 6 between Waco and Bryan... A single dot must signify about 5 traps. Right?
FЯeeMan at 02:53 PM on 04/03/08
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@Unevolved...?: prolly just represents the one that's been reported.

@Corvette_Thunder: They also do this for seat belt & drunk driving enforcement blitzes, too. Could work in your favor if you don't wear the seatbelt. Probably won't help you if you're drunk...
El-Fez at 04:20 PM on 04/03/08
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Yay! More reasons for speeders to text on their phones!
rgseidl at 05:00 PM on 04/03/08
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I can just see police departments signing up and phoning in fake trap locations. It would be a lot cheaper than actually operating them, though ultimately customers would lose faith in the accuracy of the service.
Searcher at 11:19 PM on 04/03/08
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For departments to bother with marking fake speedtraps makes the assumption that they're actually interested in enforcement for safety sake. I think it's pretty obvious that revenue generation is the prime motivator for speed enforcement, so fake speedtrap locations would defeat the real purpose.
KaiserM715 at 04:31 PM on 04/04/08
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I see that Tulia, TX is listed (as shown on the screen shot above). A classic speed trap (my wife's first ticket).